Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and author of The Purpose Driven Life, announced plans earlier this week at a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda, to host an unprecedented gathering of pastors and church leaders from all 54 African nations in conjunction with a national day of Thanksgiving next year.

The All Africa Purpose Driven Church Congress, which is planned for August 6-10, 2015, will be held during Rwanda Shima Imana, a relatively new celebration in Rwanda, a "Day of Thanksgiving" to celebrate reconciliation and gratitude on the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

The conference will be the first of five annual continent-wide conferences to take place by 2020, with the second planned to be held in Latin America in 2016, organizers said. more >>

Renowned Hispanic evangelical church leaders from Latin America and throughout the United States will trek to Los Angeles to partake in LiderVision Conference, considered to be the largest Spanish-speaking convergence movement, during a two-day event beginning August 1.

"Pastors and ministry leaders today need ministerial renovation. We need to broaden our knowledge and skills and in turn we need to work together," reads a statement on LiderVision's website. "That is why LiderVision is not only an annual event but an event of connections."

A new documentary, "When God Left the Building," slated for release in August, will examine the decline of the American church and the overall deteriorating spiritual condition of the United States.

Thom Schultz, director and president of Group Publishing, set out to examine the fall of several churches and found that in addition to internal issues, external cultural factors are playing a part in the decay of the church.

"The American church as we know it is dying," said Schultz in a statement. "What was once the heart and soul of the community is going away. The majority of churches across the country are either stuck or in a state of decline …" more >>

President Barack Obama may have new pressure on him to consider religious liberty issues regarding his pending executive order barring LGBT employment discrimination.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, many believe a renewed demand for religious exemption consideration now exists.

On Monday, the highest court in the land ruled 5 to 4 that a closely held business such as a family-owned one could be exempted from providing certain forms of birth control due to religious objections. more >>

CP spoke to Warren, a best-selling author and pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. He was on a June 9 panel called, "Hobby Lobby and the Future of Religious Liberty," hosted by the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. more >>

BALTIMORE – Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren remembered his late son, Matthew, Monday night as a fruitful Christian who used his trials to spread the gospel and encouraged hurting pastors at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors' Conference to do to the same.

Warren said Matthew would have been a great counselor because he regularly used his pain to help uplift others.

He spent so much time helping others that after his death, Warren said, "I may have received 30-35 thousand letters of condolences from people around the world, and it wasn't the rock stars, the prime ministers or the presidents' cards and letters that meant the most to me. The letters that meant the most to me were letters from people that Matthew had led to Christ, and they would say 'I'm going to be in heaven because of your son.'" more >>